07 A different game?

[Coffeeholic]

The biggest changes in this game occured between the '01 and '02 seasons and the '03 and '05 seasons.

After the '01 season, individual player controls were implemented, giving us much more hand's on control of the play by play.

Between the '03 and '05 season, TSN/SOM vastly "improved" (?) it's pricing structure, removing the "uber" bargains from the card sets, and changed the roster requirements and a few control settings which had allowed more manipulation of the game system.

The biggest differnce, IMO, between this years set and past editions is the generic quality of the ballparks, but then that's not TSN's or SOM's fault. Unfortunately, this has led me to only be managing 1 team so far, even though we are 6-7 weeks into the new season, as I find that when I try to put another team together, I keep ending up with the same players that I'm using on my 1st team.

[The Turtle]

I don't know if its that different, but I not doing anywhere close to where I have been in the past. I went from .530 to about .475 right now and I have one team that is 59-73 despite being 557 to 561 in the run differential ) I am 15-31 in 1-run games)...and have had bad luck with D. ortiz (on 2 teams hitting .201 on both and does not ahve a .800 OPS on either, one is in Great American and one is on the Cell.) Also struggled with Thome and Delgado. Delgado before I traded him had an OPS under .600 in more than 50 games.


And that is just a few of my struggles. :cry:

[Sknsfan]

I've found that this year I'm having a much tougher time figuring out pitching.

My hitters are generally doing ok, including two leagues where I'm hitting .295, but my pitchers are attrocious in every 07 league so far.

I've tried going with the: 35 mil for pitching, strong up the middle plan. The 30 mil for pitching, solid D all around, great obp plan. And I've built but not started a Hit as many homeruns as possible plan.

I've gone with 4 starter rotations and 5 starter rotations - neither looks very good.

Hitters parks and Pitchers parks. Just can't seem to get them straight.

I wasn't a superstar in 05 and 06, but I maintained a .520 winning percentage with 7 championships between the two (hoping for an 8th with my last 2006 team). And even though I got slaughtered there, made it to the Champions League in the 06 tour.

Right now my only team in first place happens to be two games under .500 and my only team over .500 is 25-23 and in 3rd place.

All of my woes are pitching related.

Now that I have spouted off - anyone have any solutions?

(anyone who made it through that rant has got to be a dedicated boards reader.)

;)

[deeznuts515]

I feel like it's the same game. I am a big fan of the fact that the pricing has improved drastically. To me the game is a more enjoyable challenge when it's not just about drafting the poorly priced players (Dubose etc).

Obviously there are a million ways to win, but these are the things I personally try to stick to:

-- Maximize reliever innings, out-per-dollar ratio is much better with RPs than SPs. In a similar vein, S5's are the most efficiently priced SP's, out-per-dollar. Thus it can pay off to maximize innings from these pitchers -- if you can get them to pitch 6+ per start, you get more than you pay for, while still getting your RPs in the game frequently.

-- Spend at least $52 mil on hitting regardless of ballpark

-- Spend drastically more at the top of the lineup. A lineup with 5 expensive players and then 3 cheapies is much more efficient than a lineup of 9 moderately priced players.

Here is an example of a team constructed thusly.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=541

Maybe some of these things are obvious and or debatable, but making these three things my primary focus during team construction has been effective for me, hope this helps someone else.

[durantjerry]

Another difference to me is that there seems to be more good defensive players than in recent years. One thing that may help your pitching is a good defense. My teams with very good defenses are getting relatively good pitching for what I spent. I did try to take it to an extreme, but the results there haven't been as good. Hudson gets raked whether he has a good defense behing him or not. There are so many good defensive players, I think you must have at least a couple because others will have good defenses. My teams this year are letting up very few unearned runs relative to earlier years. I rarely had a team that did better than one unearned run every three games and was ecstatic if it ever got to one unearned run every four games. Now I have a team with only eight unearned runs in 90 games. Another team with a decent defense in US Cell has only let up 16 unearned runs in 90 games. I have others with similar results. It's quite a big difference.

[TIMWOFFORD]

Surprisingly, my first 2007 team at 62-49 playing at Chase has 3's up the middle - Durham and M Young - a 3 at 3rd in A-Rod - and 3's in the corner outfield with Luke Scott in LF and A Escobar in RF.
I have seen alot of discussion about strong D this set, but my first team seems to be winning ugly, scores like 9 to 7 while committing 3 errors, yet still winning.
My 4 starting pitchers are all in top 7 in run support!

[Terry101]

Probably belongs on the strategy page but seems like no one goes there. Deeznuts, logically what is the difference between nine 4 million dollar players and five 6 million/three 2million dollar players? Some people say good hitting throughout the lineup is the way to go.

[deeznuts515]

[quote:1846b26592]logically what is the difference between nine 4 million dollar players and five 6 million/three 2million dollar players? Some people say good hitting throughout the lineup is the way to go.[/quote:1846b26592]

The players at the top of the lineup get more PA; each successive lineup spot gets approximately 18 less PA than the one that precedes it. So it makes sense to me to spend more on these spots; the 9th spot is going to get around 162 less PA than the leadoff spot -- that's a lot in my mind -- it's more efficient to have the guys you spent the most money on getting the most PA. If everyone got the same amount of PA it would make more sense to spend equally.

I think there's another aspect here but I can't remember/hope to effectively describe it... Apologies if I have now hijacked this thread.

[J-Pav]

[b:e63b4d7d3b]Deezenuts[/b:e63b4d7d3b] & [b:e63b4d7d3b]Terry[/b:e63b4d7d3b]:

I can't quote the source (I don't remember the book), but it's been written that, mathematically speaking, the best baseball lineup consists of what in the strato world would be nine $5m hitters (that is, equal contributors). Because of the limited availability of salaries at each position, this was impossible to do in '06 (although it's easier this year).

Although the nine hitter gets 80% of the PAs of the leadoff hitter, in the SOM salary scheme, 80% of $5 is only a dollar less. So you now have 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, which isn't all that much a stretch from all 5s. However, with limited salaries, the fractions between four and five dollars make a big difference. If the three "$6 guys" you want actually cost $20.25, that extra $2.25 needs to come from somewhere else. If it comes from your three $4 guys, that $12 has been reduced by almost 20%.

Now throw in a bargain (the DH), which is a SS4 that can hit like a $4 cheapie but can be had for two fitty because of the poor defense. Additional bargains include efficiently used platoons, undervalued players, etc. All of these considerations affect the salary structure, which started out with "let's get all 5s" but ended up looking like "get five 8s and some cheapies."

So, the "good hitting through the lineup" is what we're all after, but "good hitting" is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Back on topic...

[b:e63b4d7d3b]Jerry[/b:e63b4d7d3b]:

I know you weren't calling me out personally, but yes, that was me crying in my beer in the [i:e63b4d7d3b]Skill or Chance[/i:e63b4d7d3b] thread. I was extremely frustrated that poorly constructed lineups built by beginner managers were not just beating me, but sweeping me in a well designed home ballpark. It took me more than three fourths of the card season to realize that '06 had much less to do with the player cards and everything to do with the ballparks.

I typically try to win in as many ballpark environments as possible. I won in Safeco and The Cell right off the bat and so moved to Petco, where I floundered for what seemed like [i:e63b4d7d3b]forever[/i:e63b4d7d3b]. Crappy teams were pounding me left and right. Once Bernie's winning ballparks post came out, :idea: , I realized I was looking east for the sunset. Once safely back in Ameriquest, Safeco and PNC, the wins came pouring in like the days of old.

That's why I'm wondering if Bernie's crew posted the '06 ballpark win pcts, and then intentionally took away the extreme ballpark advantages for '07. Managerial skill is now more important than simple ballpark selection.

I'm enjoying '07 so far, each new team is better than the one before it for the most part, so all seems right with the universe again.

:D

[geekor]

[quote:3f0e7685bd]That's why I'm wondering if Bernie's crew posted the '06 ballpark win pcts, and then intentionally took away the extreme ballpark advantages for '07.[/quote:3f0e7685bd]

Yea, Bernie controls SOM and makes all the cards by hand..... :roll: :wink:

One reason I dislike 07 very much, all the parks are the same. there is no advantage to extreme pitchers, which there are many of. I just floating by, with no teams really doing great, thankfully only 1 doing really really bad.

btw, even more than last year, run differential is complete crap. I looked at my leagues, and none of them the guy with the best run differential has the best record. In quite a few the guy with the best record is barely above 0, (like +20-30) after nearly 80% complete. I personally have a team with nearly -80 run differential that is only 3 games under .500.... :roll: That would almost never happen back in 02/03.....